Interactions - November/December 2012

During the HAXLR8R program, the

Nomiku team learned how to turn their sous vide DIY kit, which they had developed with help from U.S.-based makers like Mitch Altman, into a compact consumer product that is more affordable than most competing versions on the market.

China’s historical development, its educational system, and its culture or focus on manufacturing following the years of economic reform. For example, in a blog post in response to a New York Times article by John

3. Ratto, M. A Practice-based model of access for science: Linux kernel development and shared digital resources. Science and Technology Studies 20, 1 (2007), 73-105.

4. See http://www.stcsm.gov.cn/jsp/xxgk/zhtz/ content.jsp?id=2267 and http://www.stcsm.gov.cn/ zwzyml/fileUpload/file/ 20111102100853.doc

Markoff and David Barboza on

5. Leadbeater, C. Living on Thin Air: The New Economy. Viking, 1999, 18.

China’s innovation goals [15], James

6. See www.transfabric.org and www.makercarni-val.com

Nomiku not only uses open source manufacturing in Shenzhen but in many ways also reflects the mak-er-culture ethos. The device is the brainchild of a couple of passionate home cooks who gave birth to the idea while they sat at home watching Top Chef. Nomiku was designed to function on simple, cheap components, and rather than being financed by a large corporation or investor, it was sponsored through

Landay reflected on his work and teaching experiences at Microsoft

Research Asia and Tsinghua

7. This includes but is not limited to Liu Yan, Chen Xu, Min-Lin Hsieh, Ricky Ng-Adam, Isaac Mao, Aaajiao, Mitch Altman, Justin Wang, Garnet Hertz, Paul Dourish, Susan Evans, Ingrid Fischer-

University in Beijing. He argued that

Schreiber, John Philip, Briar Smith, Kate Coyer, and Kevin Gotkin.

“the level of innovation and creativity in this cohort is much lower than in similar cohorts in the U.S. And in fact, the ones that are the best on the ‘creativity’ scale almost invariably are folks who received their

8. http://blog.makezine.com/2012/04/04/maker- spaces-in-education-and-darpa/

9. https://t witter.com/maltman23/status/186997470

180548609?category=people

10. Turner, F. From Counterculture to Cyberculture:

Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Catalogue, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2006.

Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website that has become emblematic as a DIY and maker business model. With Kickstarter, anyone— a geek working out of a basement, or a passionate home cook—can become inventor and producer by seeking financial support from the Kickstarter community. This is how the Nomiku founders described their original idea: “Our goal is to create the best immersion circulator for home cooks so everyone can have sous vide in their kitchen arsenal. Eating and sharing perfect food shouldn’t be out of reach” [14].

Ph.D.s in the U.S./Europe or worked in the U.S./Europe” [16]. Comments such as Landay’s often contribute to cultural stereotypes and extend existing systems of power. We have attempted to show that the hackerspace and maker culture in China challenges dominant views that define regions other than “the West” as inherently lacking creativity or the capacity to innovate. Cross-regional collaborations on DIY and open-source development such as

11. Keane, M. Creative Industries in China: Media, Art, Design and Entertainment. Wiley, 2012.

12. Jeffrey, L. Innovation spaces of the future:

Research notes on China’s shanzhai meeting the makers. The Future Now Blog. Aug. 16, 2011; http:// www.iftf.org/node/3943

13. HAXLR8R stands for hardware-related accelerator, a hardware-focused incubator. It was founded by Cyril Ebersweiler and Sean O’Sullivan through their SOSventures fund. Operational partners in China are Chinaaccelerator, Seeed Studio, and Dragon Innovation. See more at http://haxlr8r.com

14. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nomiku/ nomiku-bring-sous-vide-into-your-kitchen?ref=live

15. Barboza, D. and Markoff, J. Power in numbers:

China aims for high-tech primacy. New York Times. Dec. 5, 2011; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/ science/china-scrambles-for-high-tech-dominance. html?_r=4&pagewanted=all

November + December 2012

HAXLR8R projects like Nomiku and China’s hackerspaces together demonstrate that “created in China” is already a reality, but it takes a slightly different form from how politicians, policy makers, and large corporations envision the future of innovation.

HAXLR8R projects provide alternative takes on what innovation means in the first place. China’s hackerspaces demonstrate that “ created in China” already exists and that it has emerged from grassroots communities committed to a maker ethos and DIY. These spaces demonstrate that making and remaking is as much about forming community across cultural boundaries and engaging critically with political debates as it is about hacking together a low-cost sous vide tool.

interactions

Concluding Thoughts China’s technology sector is often assumed to inherently lack innovation and creativity. Frequently

ENDNOTES:

1. http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_ALL_

Hacker_Spaces

16. http://dubfuture.blogspot.com/2011/12/china- will-overtake-us-in.html ABOUT THE AUTHORS Silvia Lindtner is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine and at the Cooperative Information and Systems Laboratory at Fudan University, Shanghai. Her research explores the relationship between DI Y creativity, global maker culture, and contemporary political, social, and economic transformations in China. David Li is one of the founders of the hackerspace XinCheJian. He has worked in the areas of social networks, mobile systems, and virtual worlds. He received a B.S. in computer science from the University of Southern California.